No alternative as waste scheme trashed

Nick Smith must explain how he is going to prevent contamination of New Zealand’s ground and water with liquid and hazardous waste after scrapping the only monitoring scheme and offering no replacement, says Labour’s Environment Spokesperson Megan Woods.

“From today, New Zealand has no way to monitor and track hazardous waste to stop contamination. Yesterday, Nick Smith scrapped the existing WasteTRACK scheme and is offering no replacement.

“This leaves the environment and New Zealanders vulnerable.

“Nick Smith has to step up and tell us what the alternative is. New Zealand generates 500,000 tonnes of liquid and hazardous waste each year. We need a system for tracking where that waste is disposed of.

“Without a system, it’s back to the bad old days of dodgy dumping and costly containments.

“Everyone knows that the previous system needed improvements, but the industry had proposed a range of workable and cost-effective plans to update it.

“Instead, Nick Smith has chosen the ‘none of the above’ option, discarded years of industry work and put our environment at risk,” says Megan Woods.